
Qass 



Book. 



.2 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Jtlemortal Sermon 



BY 



THE , REV. JOHN FALKNER BLAKE. 






o 




A SERMON 



Jfawfcw m& Pfath of JMhaftam l&taflrttt, 



PREACHED IN 



CHRIST CHURCH, BRIDGEPORT, CONN., 

EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 16th, 1865. 



REPEATED IN THE 



NORTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, BRIDGEPORT, 



APRIL lMk, 1865. 



BY 

REV. JOHN FALKNER BLAKE, 

RECTOR OP CHRIST CHURCH, BRIDGEPORT. 



NEW YORK: 

W. H. KELLEY & BRO., 633 BROADWAY. 
1865. 



The following sermon was preached in Christ Church, 
Bridgeport, on the Sunday morning following the assassina- 
tion of the late President : and repeated in the North Con- 
gregational Church on the day of his funeral obsequies, by 
request of a Committee of citizens appointed at a meeting 
called by the Mayor of Bridgeport to make arrangements for 
the proper observance of that day. 



John F. Trow, 

Pbinteb, Stkbkotyper, AElbctrottpbb, 

50 Gbbbnb Stbbet, N.Y. 



Bkidgeport, Conn., 20th April, 1865. 



Reverend and dear Sir 



The undersigned, having listened with great interest to 
your discourse delivered in the North Congregational Church, 
on the evening of Wednesday last, the day of the obsequies of 
President Lincoln, would respectfully request a copy for publi- 
cation. 

Charles B. Hubbell, S. B. Ferguson, 

Hanford Lyon, S. S. Clapp, 

S. Hartwell, Frederick Wood, 

Gideon Thompson, C. Spooner, 

Henrt R. Parrott, L. W. Clark, 

Henry Jones, R. Tomlinson, 

Joseph Thompson, Benjamin Ray, 

George Burroughs, S. Tomlinson, 
Monson Hawley. 

Ret. J. F. Blake. 



To Mr. Charles B. Hubbell and Others : 

Gentlemen : In reply to your note, I send you the manu- 
script of my recent sermon on the death of Abraham Lincoln. 
Thanking you for the kind feeling which prompted you to 
request it, 

I am yours, sincerely, 

JOHN FALKNER BLAKE. 



tg^ftMM B— I — B— MSB 



SERMON 



Deut. iii ; 23, 24, 25. 
And I besought the Lord at that time, saying, 

Lord God, thou hast begun to shew thy servant thy greatness, and 
thy mighty hand : for what God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do 
according to thy works, and according to thy might ? 

1 pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond 
Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. 

Deut. xxxiv: 1 — 6. 

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of 
Nebo, to the top of Fisgah, that is over against Jericho r and the Lord 
shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, 

And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the 
land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, 

And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm 
trees, unto Zoar. 

And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto 
Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed : 
I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over 
thither. 

So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, ac- 
cording to the word of the Lord. 

Our Church has appoiuted this season for the 
celebration of one of the great Festivals of the 
Christian year. We are accustomed at Easter to 



come to the house of God, and, while our souls 
are overflowing with joy — to mingle our glad 
voices in triumphant songs, and to cry out from 
the depths of grateful hearts, " The Lord is risen." 
But, this year, a greater than the Church — Al- 
mighty God — has appointed the day as a day of 
trouble and anguish, and again is brought to pass 
throughout the land, that which was spoken by 
Jeremiah the prophet, saying : " In Rama was 
there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and 
great mourning." It seems as if " there was not 
a house in which there was not one dead." 

The people's shout of victory has not yet 
ceased echoing from hill to hill ; but it is drowned 
in the wail of agony which comes up from a bro- 
ken-hearted nation. On Good Friday, God's 
great deliverance was so fresh in our thoughts, 
that we scarcely knew how to fast and mourn ; 
but on this Easter, His hand is so heavy upon us, 
that we are constrained to hang our harps upon 
the willows and sit down and weep ; for we know 
not how to sing ! 

The leader and liberator of the American 
people has fallen by the dastardly hand of an 
assassin, whose accomplice, another cowardly ad- 
herent of the foulest cause ever known under 
Heaven, has, with bloody hand, forced his way to 



the sick-bed of our chief Minister of State — lying 
already near to the gate of Death — and attempted 
to plunge a dagger into his heart ! 

Our beloved President is dead ! Lost forever- 
more to us ! Lost forevermore to his country ! 
What is there so dear, that you would not freely 
have given it to have saved him for the nation ? 
I know that there are thousands of patriots, the 
language of whose hearts to-day is, "Would to 
God I had died for thee ! " I am sure there are 
those here present, who, if the Almighty God had 
given them the choice, would have said : " Take 
my child, my only child ; but, oh God, spare the 
head of the nation." 

I know the depth of your love for our mur- 
dered President, and therefore I ask you to weep 
Math me to-day while we consider his late relations 
to us as a people. As I ponder over them, they 
seem to me to bear a striking analogy to those 
which Moses sustained to the children of Israel. 

First, if we ask how Mr. Lincoln came to be 
the President of the United States, I think the 
spontaneous answer of every heart will be, God 
called him to the position, even as He called Moses. 

When we consider the position of the young 
Hebrew in the household of Pharoah, it seems 
impossible that he could ever become the liberator 






8 

of the Hebrew slaves. From infancy he had been 
brought up in the palace. All its glories were 
around him to dazzle, all its luxuries at his com- 
mand to enervate him. He was so high in the 
favor of the royal family, that he was called " the 
son of Pharoah's daughter," and there was even 
reason to believe that he might one day sit upon 
Pharoah's throne. On the other hand there were 
the despised children of Abraham, slaves of the 
king, oppressed by cruel task-masters. Who 
would have supposed that, from out the palace of 
the oppressor, he would come forth who was to 
bid the oppressed go free? that Moses, spurn- 
ing the pomp of Pharoah's court, would himself 
be their leader ? Yet so it was ; for God said : 
"So let it be." 

It was equally improbable to human reason, 
that Abraham Lincoln should be the President of 
the United States. Born, and brought up, in the 
land of slavery, in the State of Kentucky, accus- 
tomed to the manual labor of the farm and of the 
forest, associating with unrefined and uneducated 
people, until he shared somewhat in their charac- 
teristics, but thirsting for knowledge, and rising 
superior to circumstances, we find him after many 
years established as a humble lawyer in the State 
of Illinois. 



Wfi 



It was here that the nation found him. Why 
did it seek him ? Not for his fame, for he was 
comparatively unknown outside of his own State. 
Not for the greatness of his intellect, for that had 
not then been made mauifest. Not for his un- 
equalled honesty, for such a quality was hardly to 
be expected in a Western lawyer. The politician 
may say he was sought because he was available. 
The Christian, as he regards subsequent events, will 
say, " God raised him up to be the President of the 
United States." The man came witli the age, and 
God sent them both. 

As we regard the difficulties which stood in the 
way of Moses, on entering upon the work that he 
was called to perform, we wonder that he was not 
appalled. The power seemed to be all on one 
side. What could the unarmed slaves do in a 
contest with the armed hosts of Egypt? But 
Moses remembered that God was on his side, and 
he became lion-hearted. 

When our people had spoken through the 
ballot-box, and decided who should be their Pres- 
ident, who can measure the difficulties and dangers 
which beset the man of their choice ? You re- 
member how the flag had just been dishonored, 
and that the then President sat in his chair " like 
a sleeping Jove," — the thunderbolts which God 



10 

and his country had given him to hurl, with giant 
force, at the foes of the nation, lying idle and harm- 
less in his hand. You remember how he was sur- 
rounded by corrupt cabinet officers — may their 
names go down to history eternally infamous ; for 
they had been cooperating with the enemies of the 
country to deliver it up to them. You remember 
how the ships of war had been sent to peaceful 
foreign ports ; how the public monies had been 
squandered — how the munitions of war had been 
placed in the hands of the foe. You remember how 
the constitutionally elected President of the 
country had to creep to his post of danger at the 
Capitol in disguise — how it required all the 
skill of the Lieutenant-General to prevent the 
rising of a mob on the day of Inauguration — how 
soldiers had to be mingled with the crowd who 
witnessed the ceremony, with strict injunctions to 
each, to watch every person near him, lest a deadly 
weapon should be aimed at the President elect 
while he was taking the oath of office. I was in 
that crowd, and I well remember the intense anxiety 
which was felt. I recall too that the Lieutenant- 
General sank exhausted on his chair in the even- 
ing, saying : "Thank God the day has passed with- 
out bloodshed ! It is more than I expected ! " 
You remember how nearly half the States were in 



11 

rebellion, and that we expected daily to hear of 
the assassination of the new President ; and as you 
ponder upon these and other difficulties and dangers, 
do not the circumstances in which our lamented 
President first took charge of affairs seem appal- 
ling ? It was the Lord's work which was to be 
done ; His servant began its performance without 
fear, and he was saved, for God's hand was over him, 
until it was all finished. 

What was the work which Moses was called 
to do ? It was nothing less than to deliver his 
race from slavery. The work before our late be- 
loved President was the same. God called him 
to free the nation. When we formed what we 
called a free country, and declared to the world 
that " to all men inalienably belong life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness," African slavery — 
shame on us — was allowed to remain in many of 
the States. We proclaimed the truth with our 
lips, and denounced it as a lie by our actions. 
We sowed to the wind, and we reaped the whirl- 
wind. 

We became a nation of slaves. The slave- 
holders became slaves to the worst of passions. 
They gradually went backward, till they arrived 
at a state of semi- barbarism. We want no better 
proof of this than the commencement of this 



12 

war, which, in the words of one of the ablest of 
the traitors — and I quote them because they can- 
not be too deeply impressed upon our minds — 
"was inaugurated not because the Government 
was unrighteous ; not because the Southern States 
had not received fair and honorable treatment ; 
not because they had not enjoyed more than 
their share of privilege and office, but for the 
purpose of establishing a government, in the 
nineteenth century, whose corner stone should be 
human slavery ; " an institution which England — 
with all her selfishness — had abolished in her col- 
onies, while even Russia had overthrown — as un- 
worthy of the age — a system far superior to 
American slavery. If this is not proof sufficient, 
then take as evidence the Southern conduct of 
the war. Let their cruelties — which would dis- 
grace the wild tribes of Africa — speak ; let the 
graves of the sixty thousand soldiers whom they 
murdered by starvation bear their testimony ; 
and if this is not enough, ask yourself if any one, 
not possessed of the devil of slavery, could have 
murdered the South's best friend, or have attempt- 
ed to assassinate a sick man in his bed. 

But more than this ; we of the free North be- 
came slaves to the slaveholders. We kneeled 
and knuckled to them. We gave up one right 



18 

after another. We allowed onr free New Eng- 
land hills to become their hunting grounds for 
panting fugitives. We gave up our liberty of 
speech and press. We proclaimed our ministers 
of Christ politicians, if they dared to pronounce 
the sacred obligations of a black man's marriage, 
or the right of a black woman to her own child, 
or the right of black people to the education of 
the minds which God had given them. Thus, 
then, black and white, we had all become slaves, 
and as God sent Moses to deliver the children of 
Israel from slavery, so, I believe, he sent Abraham 
Lincoln to deliver us. 

We are not yet quite free. I do not know 
but some, to-day, will call me politician for de- 
fending the poor and lowly, and denouncing their 
oppression. If this is their definition of politi- 
cians, then I gladly accept the name, for they 
could call me by none of which I would be so 
proud. If this is to be a politician, I have always 
been one, and, God helping me, I shall always be 
one. We are not yet quite free, but our chains 
have become loose, and are about to fall from us. 
Soon we shall stand before the world as free men. 

Go back again to the land of Egypt, and be- 
hold Moses making his appeals before Pharaoh. 
His words, at first, are without threats. He hum- 






14 

bly, yet fearlessly, in the name of his God, prays 
for that which is due his oppressed people. When 
his appeals are not heeded, he thunders in the ear 
of the proud king the threatened judgments of 
the Almighty, and, when appeals and threats fail, 
the judgments come ; disaster follows disaster, till 
the whole land groans, and at last " there is not a 
house in which there is not one dead." 

Even so it was with our late leader. How 
earnest, how tender were his appeals to our mis- 
guided Southern brethren ! How he tried to con- 
vince them by argument ! How he appealed to 
every high and noble feeling ! His first Inaugu- 
ral address closed with the following words : 

" In your hands, ray dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in 
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will 
not assail you. 

"You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggres- 
sors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Gov- 
ernment; while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, 
protect, and defend it.' 

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must 
not break, our bonds of affection. 

" The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field 
and patriot-grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this 
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again 
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 

Thus he held out the olive-branch — thus he for- 



15 

bore threatening — but, when every gentle means 
foiled, he proved to them that the magistrate 
" beareth not the sword in vain." The door of 
the temple of Janus was opened, and red and 
bloody war stalked through their laud. The war- 
horse neighed and pranced upon the summits of 
all their hills. The tread of innumerable soldiers 
shook the earth as they marched over it — con- 
quering and to conquer, capturing men, subduing 
cities, blasting and desolating the fertile fields. 
The ships of war thundered at the gates of all 
their ports, battered down their forts, and took 
possession of their harbors, till they fled like sheep 
from the whole coast. Again were they driven 
and scattered by our forces upon the land, and it 
was but as yesterday that the flower of their army 
surrendered ; and now, powerless and stricken, the 
Southern confederacy is cursed of God and for- 
saken by man. It stands before the world shiv- 
ered and blasted like a forest struck by lightning. 
No bird sings in it — no leaf flutters on its 
scorched and blackened branches — yet, from out 
the ashes and desolation and darkness of that 
place of death and hell, creeps forth the solitary 
assassin, and, led on by the foul Fiend, strikes a 
blow which makes the heart of that nation to 
bleed whose sceptre it has in vain defied. Worthy 




conclusion of an infernal cause, which gives, to law 
and liberty a martyr, and to itself eternal infamy. 
Amen and amen. 

Not the Egyptians alone had Moses to contend 
with. He had scarcely passed from sight of the 
oppressor, than his own people began to murmur 
against their deliverer. They sighed for the flesh- 
pots of slavery, and longed to return to bondage. 

Here, again, how strong is the parallel ! Was 
ever man murmured against as was our late Presi- 
dent ? Friends and foes have alike cried out 
out against him. Some denouncing him because 
he was too lenient — others because he was too 
severe — while still others have applied to him 
every vile and low epithet which bad hearts could 
invent. How often has he had occasion to cry 
out : " Save me from my friends ! " Yet in the 
midst of it all he went forward ; " his eyes looked 
right on and his eyelids straight before him." He 
had but one aim. As Moses only thought of 
bringing his people to the promised land, so he 
had no thought but to save his country and to 
lead it to a glorious and united future. On his 
first journey to Washington he said in an address 
to the Mayor of the city of New York : 

" There is nothing that could ever bring me to willingly consent 
to the destruction of this Union, under which not only the great 



"IWI'ITfl'ifl 



17 



commercial city of New York, but the whole country, acquired its 
greatness, except it be the purpose for which the Union itself was 
formed. I understand the ship to be made for the carrying and the 
preservation of the cargo ; and, so long as the ship can be saved 
with the cargo, it should never be abandoned, unless it fails the 
possibility of its preservation and shall cease to exist, except at the 
risk of throwing overboard both freight and passengers. So long, 
then, as it is possible that the prosperity and the liberties of the 
people be preserved in this Union, it shall be my purpose, at all 
times, to use all my powers to aid in its perpetuation." 

In his first inaugural address lie said : 

"I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the 
laws, the Union is unbroken; and, to the extent of my ability, I 
shall take care, as the Constitution expressly enjoins upon me, that 
the laws of the Union shall be faithfully executed in all the States. 
Doing this, which I deem to be a simple duty on my part, I shall 
perfectly perform it, so far as is practicable, unless my rightful 
masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisition, or in 
some authoritative manner, direct the contrary. 

" I trust that this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as 
the declared purpose of the Union, that it will constitutionally de- 
fend and maintain itself. 

" In doing this, there need be no bloodshed or violence ; and 
there shall be none, unless it is forced upon the national authority. 

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occu])y, and 
possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and col- 
lect the duties and imposts; but, beyond what may be necessary 
for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against 
or among the people anywhere." 

An eminent author said of him : 

"Surrounded by all sorts of conflicting claims, by traitors, by 
half-hearted, timid men, by Border-State men and Free-State men, 



E39 



SiEKsmina 



18 



by radical abolitionists and conservatives, he has listened to all, 
weighed the words of all ; waited, observed ; yielded now here, 
and now there; but in the main kept one inflexible, honest purpose, 
and drawn the national ship through." 

From the time he took his first oath of office 
till he went to his rest, his every official act was 
performed to this end. If other questions came 
up, and among them the slavery of the black race, 
the Almighty, and not man, forced them into the 
struggle. To use his own words : " I desire to 
save the Union — that must be preserved; and if 
it cannot be preserved with slavery, then slavery 
must cease." God ordered that the country could 
not be saved with slavery, and, glory to His name, 
slavery dies. 

His interest in the soldiers, who stood sword 
in hand to help him to save the Union, was most 
profound. He delighted to be personally present 
on occasions when efforts were made to add to the 
comforts of the men suffering on the field. At a 
ladies' fair, when asked to give a word of en- 
couragement, he remarked : 

" Ladies and gentlemen, I appear to say but a word. This ex- 
traordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all 
classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldier. For 
it has been said, ' All that a man hath will he give for his life ; ' and, 
while all contribute of their substance, the soldier puts his life at 



19 



stake, and often yields it up in his country's cause, llie highest 
merit, then, is due to the soldier. 

" In this extraordinary war, extraordinary developments have 
manifested themselves, such as have not been seen in former wars; 
and, among these manifestations, nothing has been more remark- 
able than these fairs for the relief of suffering soldiers and their 
families. And the chief agents in these fairs are the women of 
America. 

" I am not accustomed to the nse of language of eulogy ; I have 
never studied the art of paying compliments to women : but I must 
say, that, if all that has been said by orators and poets since the 
creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the 
women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct 
during the war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of 
America! " 

That blessing was implored on every noble 
woman here, who in the silence of her own cham- 
ber has prayed and toiled for the brave children 
of the nation, and all the people say, Amen ! 

I cannot forbear here to say one word in re- 
gard to his personal interest in the lowly. An 
incident will illustrate what 1 mean. A news- 
paper correspondent, writing from Washington, 
says : 

"I dropped in upon Mr. Lincoln on Monday last, and found him 
busily engaged in counting greenbacks. 'This, sir,' said he, 'is 
something out of my usual line ; but a President of the United 
States has a multiplicity of duties not specified in the Constitution, 
or acts of Congress : this is one of them. This money belongs to a 
poor negro, who is a porter in one of the departments (the treas- 
ury), and who is at present very sick with the small-pox. lie is 



20 



now in the hospital, and could not draw his pay, because he could 
not sign his name. 

" ' I have been at considerable trouble to overcome the diffi- 
culty, and get it for him; and have at length succeeded in cutting 
red tape, as you newspaper-men say. I am now dividing the 
money, and putting by a portion labelled in an envelope with my 
own hands, according to his wish ; ' and his excellency proceeded 
to indorse the package very carefully. No one who witnessed the 
transaction could fail to appreciate the goodness of heart which 
would prompt a man, who is borne down by the weight of cares 
unparalleled in the world's history, to turn aside for a time from 
them to succor one of the humblest of his fellow-creatures in sick- 
ness and sorrow." 

But to return. Moses leaned upon his God. 
Here was bis strength. Without this he could 
not have performed the work which God gave 
him to do. See him at the Red Sea. The people 
are murmuring — the waves are rolling before 
him — the hosts of the Egyptians are darkening 
behind him. With strong faith he looks up to 
Heaven and cries out to his God, and, lo ! the 
answer comes, for "the Lord said unto Moses, 
wherefore criest thou unto me ? speak unto the 
children of Israel, that they go forward. 1 ' Moses 
in faith lifts his rod, the waters open, and stand 
on either side as a wall, and the children of 
Israel pass through dry shod ; but the hosts of 
Pharoah, following, are engulfed in the deep. 

And now it is with grateful joy that I turn to 



21 



our late President's trust in his God. Do you 
remember that, when he left Springfield for 
Washington, he asked the people of that town to 
pray for him ? He said to them : 

" My friends, no one can appreciate the sadness I feel at this 
parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived 
more than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born, 
and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see 
you again. A duty devolves upon me which is perhaps greater 
than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days 
of Washington. He never would have succeeded, except for the 
aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel 
that /cannot succeed without the same divine aid which sustained 
him ; and in the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for sup- 
port ; and I hope that you, my friends, will all pray that I may 
receive that divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but 
with which success is certain. Again I bid you all an affectionate 
farewell." 

I am sure they granted his request. Who 
has not prayed for him? How fervently have 
your prayers always gone up from this house, and 
from your private closets, that God would help 
him ! Glory be to His name, our prayers were 
answered, and God did help him ! 

To the President of the Ohio Senate he 
said : 

" It is true, as has been said by the President of the Senate, 
that very great responsibility rests upon me in the position to which 
the votes of the American people have called me. I am deeply 



22 



sensible of that weighty responsibility. I cannot but know, what 
you all know, that without, a name, perhaps without a reason why 
I should have a name, there has fallen upon me a task such as did 
not rest upon the "'Father of his Country ; " and, so feeling, I can- 
not but turn, then, and look to the American people, and to that 
God who has never forsaken them.''' 1 

To the Synod of the Old School Presbyterians 
of Baltimore, who waited upon him in a body, he 
said: 

" I saw, upon taking my position here, I was going to have an 
administration, if an administration at all, of extraordinary diffi- 
culty. 

'' It was, without exception, a time of the greatest difficulty this 
country ever saw. I was early brought to a lively reflection, that 
nothing in my power whatever, or others, to rely upon, would suc- 
ceed, without direct assistance of the Almighty. I have often 
wished that I was a more devout man than I am : nevertheless, 
amid the greatest difficulties of my administration, when I could 
not see any other resort, I would place my whole reliance in God, 
knowing all would go well, and that he would decide for the 
right. 

" I thank you, gentlemen, in the name of the religious bodies 
which you represent, and in the name of our common Father, for 
this expression of respect. I cannot say more." 

You are most of you familiar with the follow- 
ing incident. A gentleman, having recently 
visited Washington on business with the Presi- 
dent, was, on leaving home, requested by a friend 
to ask Mr. Lincoln whether he loved Jesus. The 
business being completed the question was kindly 



23 

asked. The President buried his face in his 
handkerchief, turned away and wept. He then 
turned and said : " When I left home to take this 
chair of State I requested my countrymen to pray 
for me ; I was not then a Christian. When my 
son died, the severest trial of my life, I was not 
then a Christian. But when I went to Gettys- 
burg, and looked upon the graves of our dead 
heroes, who had fallen in defence of their country, 
I then and there consecrated myself to Christ- 
Yes, indeed, I do love Jesus." 

How have his proclamations and speeches 
been full of childlike devotion to his Heavenly 
Father ? Was ever such a document sent forth 
by the head of any nation as his last inaugural 
address ? It could not have come forth but from 
the depths of a Christian heart. 

The President was a man of prayer. An in- 
cident has gone the rounds of the newspapers 
which illustrates this. As related in the public 
prints, it has many inaccuracies. It was given to 
me two or three days after it occurred, by an em- 
inent clergyman of the city of New York. A 
distinguished lawyer of New York, himself a 
professing Christian, and an intimate friend of 
my informant, had occasion some time since to 
see the President in Washington. He went to 



24 

his house, met Mr. Lincoln, and asked for an in- 
terview of one hour. Mr. Lincoln said that the 
press of public duties forced him to decline such 
an interview. He urged that it was important. 
The President still declined. The gentleman was 
leaving when Mr. Lincoln stopped him and asked 
if he would be willing to come at five o'clock the 
next morning. He gladly agreed to do so, and 
arrived at the house next morning, as he sup- 
posed, at five o'clock. On consulting his watch 
by the street lamp, he found he had made a mis- 
take of an hour, and that it was only four o'clock. 
He determined to walk about the grounds until 
the time agreed upon. Coming near a window 
of one of the rooms of the presidential mansion, 
he heard sounds of apparent distress. On listen- 
ing, he found it was the voice of the President, 
who was engaged in an agony of prayer. The 
burden of his petition was : " Oh God ! I cannot 
see my way ; give me light. I am ignorant, give 
me wisdom ; teach me what to do and help me to 
do it. Our country is in peril. Oh God ! it is 
Thy country ; save it for Christ's sake ! " Here 
the gentleman felt his position to be questionable, 
and passing on he left the President with his 
God. On entering the house he mentioned what 
he had heard to the usher, who informed him that 



25 

the President spent the hour between four and 
five every morning in prayer. 

Here, I think, was the secret of his single, 
straight-forward course. He has cried to God, 
and God has told him to go forward, sometimes 
when difficulties have been before and behind 
him as great as those which beset Moses ; but he 
has gone forward in the strength of God, and 
deeper waters than those of the Red Sea have 
been opened for him, and mightier foes than the 
Egyptians have been overwhelmed behind him. 

Moses, at last, comes to the borders of the 
promised land. He has shared the weary toils 
and marches of his people, and with them has ar- 
rived almost at the land of Canaan. For a long 
time they linger on the border, and then the 
Lord commands him to go up to the top of 
Mount Pisgah, that he may behold the promised 
land. u And Moses went up from the plains of 
Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of 
Pisgah, that is over against Jericho : and the 
Lord showed him all the land of Gilead unto Dan, 
and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and 
Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the ut- 
most sea, and the South, and the plain of the val- 
ley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar. 
And the Lord said unto him. This is the land 



26 

which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and 
unto Jacob, saying : I will give it unto thy seed. 
I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but 
thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses the 
servant of the Lord died there in the land of 
Moab, according to the word of the Lord." 
Some time before, Moses had prayed that he 
might enter the promised land, but God refused 
his prayer. 

How affecting — how beautiful is the parallel 
here ! For more than four long years our late 
beloved President has borne this nation upon his 
heart. He has shared her troubles — yea, he has 
carried more of her sorrows than any of her chil- 
dren. Sorrowfully, wearily, prayerfully, he has 
watched and waited for the dawn of peace. We 
have long believed that we have been near to the 
glad morning of peace. Victory after victory has 
come to us. For many a day every flash from 
the electric wire has brought us good tidings from 
Tennessee, from Alabama, from Georgia, from 
South Carolina, from North Carolina — now the 
capture of Atlanta — now the triumphant march 
through Georgia — now the fall of Savannah — 
now of Wilmington — now of Charleston — now the 
victorious raids of Sheridan — and now the cries 
of despair from the traitors' capital. Could the 






27 

end be far off? How easily can we imagine the 
President kneeling in that room in the nation's 
house, offering to the God of nations the prayer 
of Moses: "Oh Lord God, Thou hast begun to 
show thy servant thy greatness, and thy mighty 
hand ; for what God is there in heaven or in 
earth that can do according to thy works and ac- 
cording to thy might ; I pray Thee, let me go over, 
and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that 
goodly mountain and Lebanon." How he must 
have longed and prayed to see the blessed result 
of God's work, of which he had been the instru- 
ment ! and, had his prayer been granted, I be- 
lieve he would have been ready to say with 
Simeon: "Lord, now lettest Thou thy servant 
depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy sal- 
vation." 

Last Sunday, the last he was to spend upon 
earth, came the news of the surrender of Lee's 
great army, which, as we believe, was the death- 
blow of the rebellion. God spared him to see 
this. The plot was prepared to take his life on 
the fourth of March, but God spared him to see 
this. Blessed be His holy name. It is as if in 
mercy he took him up the mountain, to show him 
the good things which he had prepared for his 
nation ; but, as Moses was not permitted to enter 



H 



28 

the promised land with his people, so he was not 
permitted to partake with us of the blessings 
which he has so laboriously earned for us, and for 
which we shall all love him and weep for him till 
we are cold in death. 

But let us not sorrow as those without hope. 
The land of Canaan was a goodly land, it flowed 
with milk and honey. Sweet would have been 
its rest to Moses after his weary marches in the 
wilderness ; but God had prepared for him a fairer 
land than that of Canaan, a more glorious moun- 
tain than that of Lebanon — the Canaan beyond 
the flood — the everlasting hills. 

And so of our revered President — the libe- 
rator of his people — our beloved friend. It would 
have been a bright, a glorious day for him, could 
he have seen the nation which he had saved once 
more united and happy — purified as by fire and 
rejoicing in the blessing of God. But his Father 
and ours has taken him to a better land than this. 
Having finished his work — a work which will live 
forever — we believe he has entered into his rest. 
And though 

" The mourners throng the way, and from the steeple 
The funeral-bell tolls slow ; 
Yet on the golden streets the holy people 
Are passing to and fro ; 



29 



"And singing as they meet: 'Rejoice ! another 
Long waited for, is come ; ' 
The Saviour's heart is glad, a younger brother 
Hath reached the Father's home ! " 

Even his enemies are willing now to acknowl- 
edge his worth. I am credibly informed that yes- 
terday, when the rebel General Ewell heard of 
the assassination, he wept like a child. 

And now farewell, beloved President! The 
nation, without distinction of party or sect, mourns 
for thee as a stricken family. A liberated people 
says to thee : " Well done, good and faithful ser- 
vant," and our Father says to thee : " Enter thou 
into the joy of thy Lord." 



Em— 



